Iran, Norway in Oil Talks

Norway’s oil industry can invest in Iran’s upstream development projects and also collaborate with Iranian companies to adopt enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods to boost recovery rate from Iranian oilfields, an official says.

Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy head of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), made the statement while addressing a panel on “Iran and Norway Upstream Oil Sector Cooperation Conference” in Tehran on Tuesday.

More than 30 Norwegian firms attended the two-day conference to hold technical discussions on EOR technologies and geological studies on old reservoirs. Most of Iran’s oilfields are considered brown fields in need of EOR and IOR methods for boosting their output.

The upstream oil sector includes searching for potential underground or subsea crude oil and natural gas fields, drilling exploratory wells and subsequently operating the wells that recover and bring crude oil/natural gas to the surface.

According to Manouchehri, Norwegian companies can also offer consultancy to NIOC on rehabilitating dilapidated oil and gas facilities, reported Financial Tribune Daily.

Highlighting the view that NIOC does not believe in only importing foreign equipment, he said, “Joint ventures to manufacture oil and gas equipment can also be on the agenda.”

Norwegian oil and gas company DNO is conducting studies to develop Changuleh Oilfield in western Iran. It also is interested in developing Hengam field, which is shared by Iran and Oman, based on a practice known as “unitization”—the joint development of a hydrocarbon reservoir extending across two countries—based on which the two sides split production and profit.